The changes follow a BBC investigation that highlighted the traumatic experience of mothers attending court while recovering from labour, and concerns about the rising number of urgent applications for newborn babies. Research from the universities of Lancaster and Oxford showed the number of children involved in care proceedings before their first birthday was at a persistently high level across England.
More than half of urgent care hearings in England in 2024-25 were for newborns. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory found that over 70% of care proceedings involving babies in England were emergency hearings within two days of an application. Emma Smale said the number of newborn babies in care proceedings in England and Wales subject to a same-day hearing had doubled over a decade, from one in 10 in 2012-13 to one in five in 2022-23.
Under the new guidance, applications for emergency or short-notice listings (which take place within five days) must be justified with evidence. If a judge does not agree with the level of urgency, the case will be given a standard listing between days 12 and 18. The Judiciary said the guidance is intended to help ensure parents and guardians "have time to respond more effectively to the application" and urgent judicial intervention is "focused on cases that genuinely require it".
Emma Smale, head of practice and policy at the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, described the new guidance as a "welcome focus" on the issue. She said the process of separating a mother from their baby when they have just given birth is "widely accepted as deeply traumatic for all involved", and called into question the fairness of making "profoundly life-changing decisions" when a parent cannot effectively participate in the proceedings.
A Newborn Baby Protocol has also been issued, aiming to provide a "greater level of fairness for child and parents" when care proceedings are issued immediately after birth. It says early referral and assessment by local authority children's services in England will ensure the timely provision of preventative help. Before any care order application, a Family Group Decision Making Meeting must be offered to parents, in line with the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.
Experts told the BBC's File on 4 that many babies may not have needed to go into care if support had been in place, raising concerns that some children may have been permanently separated from their birth families unnecessarily.